Under the new plan, homeroom -- eliminated last year as part of the restructuring of the school -- has been reinstated. Two certified staff members are assigned to each one and divide responsibility for the roughly 30 students in the room between them.

When a child fails to show up for school, it's the teacher, administrators, or certified staff member to whom he or she is assigned who contacts the parent. Until now, an automated system placed the call and delivered the news using a generic, prerecorded message.

``It builds a connection with students and personalizes school a little more,'' said Mike Foran, who as vice principal oversees attendance.

The goal of the initiative is to improve communication with parents and reach out to students who feel no one at the school cares about them, Thomas Reale, principal of New Britain high, told school board members last year. Both issues play a major role in low attendance, he said.

Keeping tabs on the more than 3,200 students at the school is a monumental task. And students with the most absences are widely viewed as the most likely to drop out.

Last year, Reale characterized attendance at New Britain High School as a ``huge problem,'' estimating average daily attendance at about 84 percent, slightly worse than the 86.6 percent daily average the previous year and significantly worse than the 94.7 percent average attendance statewide.

Nearly a quarter of the students in the Class of 2003 -- 23.7 percent -- quit school before graduating, according to statistics reported to the state by the district.

Under the new system, staff members remain assigned to students all four years of high school. That way, Foran said, students have an adult in the building they know well throughout high school.

The effectiveness of the plan won't really be known until the end of the semester, Reale says, but indications are that it is a success.

``A lot of people are sharing feedback from parents that they appreciate it,'' Foran said. ``Students are now finding out if they are skipping school they are not going to get away with it. Somebody is watching them.''

Foran called the initiative a ``real collaborative effort.'' All of the school's roughly 200 teachers, administrators and certified staff members are involved.

The idea was developed by a committee at the high school searching for ways to improve attendance among ninth graders and later was expanded to include all students, Foran said. A lack of motivation, transportation and parental supervision all contribute to the problem of low attendance, Reale said. Parents are sometimes shocked to find their children are not going to school, though they say they are headed that way when they leave the house or board the bus.

``That happens a lot,'' Reale said.

The new system makes it easier to clean up class rolls by identifying students who have moved away, Reale said. ``More importantly, it lets parents know early, if they want to intervene, that their child is not going to school. It's a partnership.''